


with heart in hand

by inlovewithnight



Category: Bandom, Cobra Starship, Fall Out Boy, Pete Wentz and His Humans
Genre: Coming Out, Multi, Polyamory, Sex Tape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-03
Updated: 2013-05-03
Packaged: 2017-12-10 07:27:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/783400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not even really a sex tape. But it means Pete has some decisions to make.</p>
            </blockquote>





	with heart in hand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redbrickrose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbrickrose/gifts).



Technically speaking, it's not even a sex tape. It's a make out tape with some grinding. As far as sex tapes go, it's unworthy of the term.

It makes a splash anyway. Slow news day.

It's not very hard to track the source back: Ryland's phone, stolen on the subway, with a bunch of unedited video files sitting around waiting to be put up on Vine.

**

Alex is in focus at first, working on his laptop. Then the image turns toward the back of the studio, where Pete is straddling Gabe's lap on one of the chairs, Gabe's face tucked into the curve of Pete's neck. "And here," Ryland narrates dryly, "we have just a bit of debauchery and scandal, to give the track that special zest."

"Not very debauched," Pete says, rolling his hips down against Gabe, making the chair rock. "Just kissing."

"We can be a lot more debauched than this." Gabe turns his head and kisses Pete's mouth, slow and lingering. "Promise."

"Perhaps later," Ryland suggests, "in the privacy of your boudoir."

"I'll show you my boudoir." Gabe looks up, eyes widening when he sees Ryland's phone. "Dude, don't fucking tape us. Delete that. You have to delete that."

**

Meagan covers Pete's hand with hers and guides it away from his laptop. "Stop watching it, baby."

"I can't."

"Baby."

"We look so happy." Pete pulls his hand away and hits play again. "Don't you think we look happy?"

"Of course you look happy. You are happy. Being with Gabe makes you happy."

"It did. Before it got all fucked up and ruined."

Meagan sighs and brushes her hair off her face. "Nothing is ruined."

"He hasn't called me." Pete clicks to his Twitter tab, where an endless stream of replies are informing him that he's a cheating piece of shit, also they always knew he was gay, also this is amazing and they're proud of him for being true to himself, also lololol. It's an interesting mix. Toxic, but interesting.

"No more Internet." Meagan takes the laptop, closes the lid, sets it aside. "That's enough."

"I still have my phone."

She raises her eyebrow at him, then holds out her hand. He sighs and hands his phone over.

"I'll give it back when he calls."

"He isn't going to call." Pete shakes his head and folds himself up in his chair. "He's probably murdering Ryland and then he'll just put out a statement that it was a dumb joke and out of context and whatever and he'll never be seen with me again."

"Do you need a Klonopin?"

Usually he loves how his fits of despair move past her like water, but right now he would like a _reaction_. "No, Meagan, I do not want a Klonopin."

"Okay. That's fine." She tosses his phone in her purse and walks out of the room. He still didn't get a reaction _and_ he's not getting a pill.

Fuck his life.

**

Gabe calls the next day. Meagan appears in the bathroom doorway while Pete's shaving, triumphantly waves the phone in his face, drops it to the counter, kisses his cheek, bites his earlobe, and leaves.

Pete stares after her while the phone keeps ringing, only picking it up when he knows it's a half-second away from voice mail. "Hello."

"Hey." Gabe's voice is rough, like his throat's fucked again. "It's me."

"Hey." Pete reaches out and drags his palm down the mirror, leaving a streaky glimpse of his own face. "What's up?"

Gabe laughs a little. "Uh. Well."

"Yeah." Pete leans forward until his forehead is against the mirror. "What do you want to do?"

"I've got no fucking idea."

"What are your people telling you to do?"

"My people are also your people, pretty much. I mean, McLynn and the label guys..."

"I've got Nadine, too." He has no idea if Nadine's called him or not. She's probably already voluntarily rerouted to Meagan. The women in his life are better at running it than he is. Hell, his kid is better at running his life than he is.

"Right. Yeah. But, you know. They're all telling me the same thing they're telling you."

"Which is?"

"We've gotta decide how _we_ want to handle it, and then they'll come up with a plan fitted to that."

Pete thumps his head on the mirror slowly, steadily. "What do you _want_ to do?"

"The fuck, Pete. I don't get to make the call for both of us."

Saying the words is hard. He has to do it slowly, shaping them before he says them, feeling them on his tongue. "People expect this kind of shit from me. It's part of the punchline. You can still stay clear."

"Stay _clear_? You think I'm ashamed of living my fucking life?"

And then these words jump out before he can even think about them. "Well, that's kind of why we're in this fucking situation, isn't it?"

"Excuse me?"

Pete grabs the edge of the counter and holds on tightly. "You heard me."

"Yeah, and that's why I'm telling you to fucking excuse me, because I need to get on a plane, fly to fucking Los Angeles, and kick your ass."

"Don't."

"Then you take that back. Take it back and say you're sorry."

Pete pulled back from the mirror, staring at his reflection. The strip he'd cleared with his hand had sweated into a wider patch; now he could see his whole face, his own eyes. "No."

"No?"

"I'm not going to fuck you up. I'm not going to let you let this fuck you up."

"It _doesn't_ fuck me up. It won't. I'll be fucking golden. Get, like, a million magazine covers."

"You're fielding it right now, right? All the same shit about being a cheater, and either a liar or a hypocrite or just a shady fuck."

"And you want me to prove them _right_."

"I'm going to fucking protect you, since you won't protect yourself. You _never_ protect yourself."

"You're getting me confused with _you_."

Pete kicks at the side of the bathtub. "What does Erin have to say about all this, huh? How does she feel about it?"

"She says it's up to us. And that she loves me, and that I can't fix this with vodka and if I try she'll kick my ass."

Pete's breath feels like a sob died in his throat. "You New York types are so violent."

"Damn right we are." Gabe's quiet for a moment, just long enough for Pete to think he's going to hang up. "Petey."

"They can kill it. They can have Ryland say it was a bit for a... a web thing. Acting. There's still time to kill it."

"Is that really what you want to do?"

"They _can_. They can make it go away and everything will be fine."

"Define 'fine.'"

Pete shrugs and looks at the mirror again. "Back to normal."

"Except you won't want to be together anymore."

"Who said anything about _wanting_?"

"You won't _dare_ be together anymore."

"It was stupid to think we could ever make this work. It was really fucking stupid."

"It is working. It's _been_ working. Everything is working. Don't smash a good thing." Gabe's voice breaks, which is something Pete's heard few enough times that he can count them on his hand. "Don't fucking break this, Wentz."

Pete opens his mouth, then closes it so fast his teeth catch on his lip as Meagan opens the bathroom door again. She gives him a look he can't read, careful and inscrutable-- _modelface_ , he thinks wildly--and slaps two Klonopin down on the countertop. 

"Take those," she says. "I can feel you freaking out from down the hall."

"I'm trying to take responsibility here," he tells her, or maybe he's telling Gabe. 

"You shouldn't take responsibility until you're calm enough to think." She touches her fingertip to his nose, quick and gentle, like she does to Bronx and Bear and random babies at Starbucks and other things that need a gentle touch. "Take the pills. Then think."

He drags in a breath, then another, staring at her. She stares back, meeting his eyes in silent encouragement, giving him some footing until he can find his own. Meagan is a generous soul. He'll drain people like that down to ashes if they can't defend themselves. Meagan can.

Gabe can.

"Gabe," he says into the phone again, his voice shaking. "I don't know. I don't know what to do."

"I like that answer better."

"Can you come here after all? Come out here?"

Gabe either exhales or sobs. "Yeah. Yeah. I'll fucking shank somebody for a ticket and be there today."

"You can also just buy one. We don't need two scandals."

"I'm coming. Hang on, okay? Hang on 'til I get there."

The last time Gabe said that, Pete wasn't sure he _could_. He had ended up lying on the floor in the hallway for however many hours it was until Gabe got there, pulled him up, and made him be real again. This time...

Well, he's not alone. Meagan won't let him crumple up and wait. Or, at least, she won't let him do it on the floor, not when there's a perfectly good bed.

"I will," he says, and obediently opens his mouth so she can pop the pills onto his tongue like candy. He dry-swallows and chokes against the bitterness, breathes through his nose, and speaks again. "I love you."

**

The Klonopin knocks him out until about half an hour before Gabe get there. He's in the kitchen, slowly assembling bread, cheese, Doritos, and Diet Coke into an approximation of a meal, when the front door bursts open and the alarm shrieks.

"Every time!" Gabe yells. "How do I make it stop?"

"Six six seven one three," Pete says. "Punch it in now, quick, you're almost out of time."

"I hate your stupid security system. Live in a building with a doorman like civilized..." 

The alarm stops and Pete slumps in relief against the counter. Gabe enters the kitchen and throws his bag aside, not breaking stride as he opens his arms and comes to Pete. Pete nods and takes a half-step to meet him, opening his own arms and ducking his head so Gabe can't see the tears threatening in his eyes. Fuck. All of this is so fucked up.

Gabe wraps him up, and this is exactly what Pete needed, the thing he couldn't put into words. Gabe wrapping him up and pulling him close, that was what made Pete realize in the first place that what he was feeling for Gabe was changing forms, shedding skin and crawling out as something softer, darker, more vulnerable in the underbelly. Love to in-love. Sex and romance and little undersized wings. Pete only recognized it when he realized that this, Gabe holding him like this, was what he was crying out for when he woke up at three AM.

It took a while. And it _still_ hurt, too, for ages, until they figured out how to make all the edges line up and all the wobbly pieces fit. And now he might have to give it all up.

It's not fucking fair.

Gabe pulls back just enough to catch Pete's chin and tip it up, and Pete's objection dies on his tongue as Gabe kisses him. Gabe kisses like he does everything else; grabbing and claiming his space, not giving up an inch. Taking. It makes Pete shake all the way down to his knees.

"I changed my mind," Gabe says, his voice hoarse. "I'm not letting you choose the thing where we don't have this anymore. I'm taking that off the table."

Pete laughs, choking a little on the sound. "I'm not sure it's that easy."

"I'm just telling you. You can try, but I'm not gonna go away. You're stuck with me, Wentz."

Pete shakes his head and rests his forehead on Gabe's shoulder. "I'm glad you're here."

"I'm glad, too. Seeing your face is a lot better."

"Everything is still fucked up."

"But we can figure it out. Together, right? We're better at this shit together. Twice as smart."

"I'm pretty sure that twice an idiot is still an idiot." Pete takes a breath and lifts his head again. "So, you want some coffee or something? You just got off a plane, you must be--"

"I don't need coffee. I need you to talk to me."

"I am talking."

"I need you to say very specific things."

Pete rolls his eyes. "Such as?"

Gabe isn't smiling. "Such as we're going to figure this out and you're not going to try to leave for my own good. Because I am not doing that. Seriously."

"I do need coffee. Be right back, okay?" Pete steps back and retreats to the kitchen, where he can breathe a little better. His appliances don't expect anything from him, and he doesn't owe them anything.

His phone keeps buzzing in his pocket, text after alert after text after e-mail. Half of them might be Gabe texting him from the next room to tell him he means every word. Gabe does that kind of thing sometimes.

Pete doesn't need reassurance, though. He knows how Gabe feels. The problem isn't the quality or number of emotions they both have; it's whether they're worth this. Cost-benefit analysis is cold, but it's all he's got right now.

**

When he goes back to the living room, he finds Meagan sitting with Gabe on the couch. They're holding hands, Meagan talking to Gabe in her quiet, serious way, and Pete's stomach does weird flip-flops, looking at them. They like each other. They're good with each other. He's still not used to the relief he feels about that.

"Come sit down," Meagan says, smiling at him. "Is there enough coffee left for me to have some?"

"Yeah. I can..." He gestures behind himself, trying not to stare at their joined hands or the empty space on the couch where he fits. He really likes this whole togetherness thing. It's the perfect element to torture himself with right now.

"Nope. I'll get it. Sit down, talk, figure out your plan. No hiding." She lets go of Gabe and stands up, smoothing her t-shirt down before she crosses the room. She kisses the top of Pete's head as she passes him, and lets the back of her hand brush against his hip. "It's going to be okay," she whispers.

Pete watches her go and then joins Gabe on the couch, fussing with his coffee mug and a coaster until he can't possibly spend any more time on that. "So."

Gabe clasps his hands in his lap. "So."

"I guess the first thing to do is break down our options."

"Makes sense." Gabe tilts his head back and looks up at the ceiling. "Well, we can do nothing. Code of silence. Just wait for it to blow over and die out."

"That would've worked if it didn't get picked up by anything major." Pete sips his coffee and then pushes it away. "But TMZ has it. Everywhere else picked it up. It's a thing."

"There's your idea of saying it was a joke, acting. Fictional type... thing."

"Yeah. Blame Ryland and his characters."

"It's half-plausible, but nobody will actually believe it."

"No." Pete stares at the table. "Or we can tell the truth."

"Explain the concept of polyamory to the masses."

"Get called liars and hypocrites."

"What's hypocritical about it?"

Pete shakes his head. "You and I have both done a lot of interviews where we said we're not gay."

"We're not. We're bi."

"Yeah, that's not really going to satisfy people, I think. You know that." Pete rubs his face with both hands, pressing on his eyes until he sees stars. "We both specifically said _not into dudes_ , I think."

"We can get around that."

"Yeah? How?"

Gabe shrugs. "The usual way. Talking really fast and drowning them out with bullshit. We're professionals at this."

"Don't make a joke out of this."

"I'm not." Gabe takes a frustrated breath. "We could also, you know, just say that sometimes love surprises you, sometimes things change, sometimes you grow the fuck up. Unless that's too much honesty."

"Honesty gets your heart ripped out and chewed on. Don't fucking tell me about honesty."

Gabe looks away and they sit silently for a moment that stretches out until it aches.

Pete bites at his thumbnail, looking past Gabe out the window. "What does Erin think?"

Gabe clears his throat carefully. "Erin pointed out to me, in the kindest, sweetest way possible, that in the world she moves in, I basically don't exist. Nobody knows who I am. I'm Erin Fetherston's boyfriend who has an amusing hobby in music. There is absolutely nothing I can do to her career." He almost smiles. "Actually, me having another guy in my life might make me more interesting to talk to at parties."

Meagan's giggle makes them both look up at where she's standing in the doorway, cradling her mug in her hands. " _Much_ more interesting at parties."

"What about you?" Pete asks while Gabe flips her off. "Will it fuck you up at all?"

She shrugs, flicking her hair back over her shoulder while she takes a sip. "Catalog's a little different from runway, but no, nobody will really care. I mean, the gossip will say I let you do it because I'm using you for money, or whatever, but that's their world, not mine."

"It's my world," Pete corrects, pressing his hands to his eyes again. "Our world. It matters for what Gabe and I do. And I don't want to even risk hurting your career, Megs."

"Pete, it won't. And _you're_ not hurting me. We've been doing this for ages now and it doesn't hurt me. A bunch of strangers out there where I can't see them? They can't do anything to me."

"You say that _now_ , but--"

"But nothing." She takes another sip and shakes her head. "You don't get to ask me what I think and then not believe me. That's not fair."

"Fuck. Why are you emotionally well-adjusted?"

Gabe smirks. "Someone around here has to be." He reaches out to rub the back of Pete's neck, and Pete has to fight not to close his eyes and sag under the touch. Gabe's hands are broad and warm and _fit_ him. "Will you admit we're right yet?"

Pete shakes his head. "What about Bronx?"

"What about him?"

"Don't be an asshole." Pete shrugs his hand off and steps away.

"I'm not. I honestly don't see what Bronx has to do with anything."

Meagan touches Pete's arm. "He's four. He doesn't need to know who Dad is having sex with."

"I am aware of that." Pete pulls his arm away from her. "Don't talk to me like _I'm_ four, you guys. Seriously. I'm not an idiot."

"Well, then what's the problem?" Gabe shakes his head and stands up to walk a slow circle around the room. Watching him makes Pete ache, in his chest and in his throat. Fucking Gabe. "As far as he knows, Daddy loves Meagan very much, and Uncle Gabe and Aunt Erin are nice people who come visit and give him hugs, and then he goes to bed and dreams about dinosaurs or something. Sometimes Daddy goes to New York to work and whatever happens in New York is so far out of his worldview I bet it doesn't even cross his mind. He's _four_. Who you fuck, who you love, that doesn't even exist to him, as long as you love _him_."

Pete takes a deep breath and lets it go slowly, trying to convince his jaw to unclench before it gets to the point where the pain will last all day. "I somehow don't think that Ashlee's lawyers are going to agree if we give the gossip shows a chance to introduce everybody to the concept of polyamory."

"We'd go classier than gossip shows. We'd do _People_."

"Gabe! This isn't a fucking joke!"

"I'm not fucking kidding!"

Meagan presses her hands over her eyes, bending forward until her chin is on her knees. "You both need to calm the fuck down."

"You know I'm right." Pete shakes his head and wraps his arms around himself. "Tell him I'm right."

"I don't know if you are right. It depends on a lot of stuff."

"What stuff? What does it depend on?"

"What you say to the judge. I mean, what you say to _Ashlee_ , even. If you lay it out for her the way Gabe just described it, that it doesn't hurt Bronx, that it doesn't even affect him, then maybe she doesn't bring out the lawyers at all. Maybe _she_ doesn't care. Maybe she's even happy for us."

Pete closes his eyes and tries to focus in on the beat of his heart. Thud, thud, echoing in his chest and his throat and his ears and he can even feel it in his lower lip, that one vein throbbing away because his anxiety is winding his blood pressure up to somewhere around the roof. "Maybe."

"Tell her first. Before the press. So she finds out the way _you_ want her to. You know?"

Meagan sounds so hopeful. So sweet. He knows that if he looks she'll be looking at him with her eyes all big and her lips parted just a little, and that Gabe will be looking at him like he's halfway between asking for a hug and picking a fight. He isn't up to dealing with either of those, so he keeps his eyes shut.

"The other kids will hear about it. They'll say stuff to him at school. You say he doesn't even know, but that won't be true for long if we put it out there. The other kids will say stuff, you know they will."

"Kids will always say stuff. If it isn't about this, it's about something else." Gabe's voice is rough. "You matter to him more than they do. You mediate that shit when he comes home and asks you about it. And he _will_ ask you, because you're raising him right. He'll come home and say Daddy, Bobby and Jimmy said whatever, and you'll say, I love Meagan and Uncle Gabe and Aunt Erin and they love me and that's all that matters."

"You guys really want this to be simple."

"It is," Meagan says softly.

"It isn't." Pete shrugs her touch off again and eases off the couch. "I need to go lie down again. Sleep on this."

He makes it to the door before the weight of them staring at his back is too much. "Just come with me. But no more talking, okay? I can't."

He knows they'll start whispering to each other as soon as he drops off to sleep, but as long as they can wait that long, he doesn't care.

**

He wakes up with Meagan's arms around him from behind, somehow managing to be light and delicate but warm and safe at once. Gabe's face is an inch from his, eyes closed, brow furrowed. Thinking in his sleep. Probably coming up with arguments in his sleep. Never stop fighting, never stop moving. Like a shark.

Pete aches with love, everywhere, choking on it, feeling it try to crawl out of his chest. This is always the problem, from the start of his life and probably right up until the end, not his brain chemistry or his fears or his needs or what the world throws at him. This stupid love, eating up his insides, turning back and forth from gold to poison in the fucked-up alchemy of his guts.

He loves, and loves, and loves, and he can't have. Not the way he wants. Not in the world as it is.

He turns his head and kisses Meagan's arm, pressing his lips to the inside of her elbow, where the skin is so soft and fine it seems like it might tear like tissue. "I love you," he whispers.

She's a heavy sleeper, his opposite; life is funny that way. Gabe stirs, though, his breath hitching and his eyes darting back and forth under their lids. Pete leans forward, careful not to move Meagan's arm, and kisses Gabe's mouth as softly as he can. "I love you."

Gabe opens his eyes and smiles, warm and true, so fucking happy, so fucking... _home_ , and Pete feels all that stupid love racing through his veins go cold and turn into lead again.

"I love you too," Gabe murmurs, and shifts closer, catching Pete's cheek in his hand so they can kiss better, deeper. The kiss is full of intention and promise, and Pete lets himself have it for just a minute. If he keeps going, Gabe will roll him over onto his back, wake Meagan up, and all three of them will lose an hour to slow lazy lovemaking. It would be a promise, and Pete doesn't always have the strength to break promises, even the ones he makes by accident.

So he pulls back and puts his fingers over Gabe's lips instead. "I can't."

Gabe jerks his head back. "Pete--"

"No." Pete sits up, shrugging Meagan's arm off. He hears her groan in muffled confusion, and suddenly it's too much, being in the bed. He scrambles out, kicking free of the sheets, and backs away until he bumped the dresser.

"Don't freak out," Gabe says, holding his hand out. "Baby. Come back."

"I can't. Okay? I slept on it. I thought about it. And I can't... I can't let them--"

"Who?" Meagan rubs her eyes. "Who is _them_?"

"You know!" Pete waves his hand, wrapping the other arm around himself, like it would stop anything. "Them. The nameless, faceless masses. The fucking... public."

"That doesn't have anything to do with us," Gabe says.

Pete points at him. "Exactly. Exactly."

"So what..." Gabe slumps back against the headboard and drags his hand through his hair. "I don't get it."

"They don't have anything to do with us." Pete's voice cracks, and God, he fucking hates that, he hates every little fucking betrayal his body invents. "They don't have anything to do with _this_. It's not theirs. It's ours. They haven't touched it."

"Pete..."

"They haven't done it to you. You haven't had your relationships ripped apart, your looks, your fucking... _body_. Not even my dick is just mine, you know? I can't... I can't let them have this. Gabe. I _can't_. I can't let them have another part of my guts and my blood and my life. I can't just give it to them. Not if I don't have to. Not if I can protect it."

Gabe takes an unsteady breath. "So you want to protect us by ending us."

"No, I want to protect us by not telling them about us." Pete rubs his hands over his face. "I don't want to stop being together. I just don't want them to know."

Meagan slips out of the bed. "I'm going to go make coffee."

"You don't have to do that. I can do that."

"No," she says, twisting her hair up into a knot at the back of her head. "You need to have this conversation. It doesn't include me."

"Of course it includes you, Megs, don't say that."

"Pete." She looks at him, her hands still twisted up in her hair. "I'm not the one you're keeping secret, babe."

Pete looks sharply at her, then at Gabe, whose face is a mask. He's still sitting on the bed, leaning on Pete's pillows and looking at Pete like he hears what he's saying, but Pete can't read him.

"It's not because I'm ashamed," Pete says. "I'm not ashamed. I just want this to be safe. Ours. I don't want to give it to them."

"I understand."

He can't read Gabe's voice, either. "Do you? Are you sure?"

"Yeah. I get it." Gabe looks away first, swinging his legs off the bed and standing up. "I'm going to take a shower."

"Don't be pissed at me. You just said you get it. You can't be pissed at me if you get it."

Gabe shakes his head. "I'm not pissed at you, Pete."

"Kiss me, then." Pete's voice breaks again. "Come over here and kiss me."

Gabe crosses to him and grabs his shoulders, pulling him into a rough, frantic kiss. "I love you. Don't you fucking think for a minute I don't love you. You're fucking killing me, but that doesn't change how I love you."

"I'm not killing you. I'm not. Nothing has to change."

Gabe shakes his head, trying to wipe his eyes on his shoulder without letting go of Pete. "You swear? You swear you're not going to end this? You're not going to leave me?"

"I swear. I promise."

Gabe takes a breath, then another, then presses a dry kiss to the corner of Pete's mouth. "What are we going to do, then? Flat denial?"

Pete shrugs and rests his head against Gabe's chest, trying to find the comfort that's always there. It feels like he would have to scratch for it right now, like it's pulled away from him. "Private lives are private?"

"Yeah? You think that'll..." Gabe sighs, his hands dropping to Pete's back, holding him in close. "Yeah. Okay."

"Our lives are private."

"Yeah." Gabe nods and Pete closes his eyes tightly, fighting back the tears that keep threatening no matter how much he tells himself they don't belong.

Gabe kisses the top of his head. "Call Nadine while I'm in the shower, okay?"

"And Bob."

"And Bob." Gabe lets him go and turns away. "Then breakfast and you can take me to the airport."

Pete's stomach drops. "You're not staying?"

"I've got... you know. A thing. This was last-minute."

"Right. Of course." Fuck. "But it's settled now."

Gabe doesn't answer, but the click of the bathroom door feels like one.

All settled. Right.

**

Pete lasts three days without hearing from Gabe before he calls Erin.

"Pete!" She always answers the phone sounding half-distracted, and he takes it as a good sign today, a reassurance that the world hasn't come to a stop. "How are you?"

"Am I interrupting anything?"

"I'm looking at fabric samples, but it can wait. You never call if it's not important."

"Sometimes I call to talk about _Project Runway_."

"And that's important." The sound goes muffled for a moment, like she turned the phone away from her face, then comes back. "There, I'm taking five. Now. What can I help you with?"

He takes a breath, holds it, lets it go. "Is Gabe okay?"

"Gabe is..." She hesitates just long enough to make his stomach twist up into knots. "Gabe is feeling his feelings."

"That bad, huh?"

"I thought the statement was really well-done."

Private lives are private, private videos put up on the internet to be ripped apart by everyone are a sad commentary on the state of things. "Yeah. Well, you know. Nadine."

"She's very good."

"I know." He laughs a little bit, even though it hurts. "That's why I pay her."

"He'll feel better soon."

"I wasn't rejecting him. You know that, right? You can tell him that?" He's pretty sure he sounds desperate, pathetic, but he _feels_ pretty desperate and pathetic.

"I have told him that, yes."

"I love him, Erin. I love him so much."

"I know, Pete. And he knows. I promise he knows."

"So why..." Pete kicks out blindly at the wall. "So why is this _happening_?"

Her voice is soft, like a million blankets he could crawl under to hide, except they're not _his_ blankets. He doesn't have a right to them. "Give him time. That's all I can say."

"Yeah. Yeah. Time." He sniffs. "I can do that. Sorry."

"Should I have him call you?"

"Only if he wants to. Don't make him."

"I don't make him do anything."

"Right. You ask nicely."

"I'm very nice." She sounds a little hopeful now, like maybe she can make him laugh, and he does his best to oblige before he hangs up and goes to find his own stack of blankets somewhere.

**

Gabe still doesn't call, but he e-mails Pete a couple of pictures of baby snow jaguars and a list of awesome YouTube puppy videos from Buzzfeed, so that's something. And he Likes one of Meagan's pictures on Instagram, one of Pete's toothbrush, so that has to be a good sign, too.

But he doesn't call, and they don't talk, and Pete hates it.

Two weeks after the statement, he's sitting at Bronx's swimming lesson, scrolling idly through his @ replies on Twitter, when they start lighting up with people asking him giggly questions about if he having hangs with @GabrielSaporta right now. Pete frowns and flips over to Gabe's feed, then to Instagram, and waits for the picture to load. When it does, his stomach does a brand-new series of flip-flops.

It's a picture of a bar, with a line of empty shot glasses and a bottle of vodka, and the caption is, "Tonight we party like it's 2010."

Pete jumps over to write a text, then stalls out. _Not funny_ , his first impulse, is too dad-like, too scolding. _Who're you hanging with, how come I'm not invited_ is fucking disingenuous and pathetic. _Dude, don't, please_ is whiny. _It's only 8:30 on your coast_ is sad.

So he doesn't say anything, he just sits there and feels shitty until Bronx walks across the pool deck and drips chlorine all over his jeans and asks if they can get McDonalds on the way home.

He wants to call Erin again, but what is he supposed to say to her? That she needs to control him? That she needs to fix him? Why should she fix Pete's mess? And maybe it's not even really a mess, maybe it's just a joke. Sometimes Gabe's sense of humor is off. Maybe that's all it is. Just a joke.

His stomach won't relax and he can't even take a bite of Bronx's fries.

Meagan throws his bottle of Klonopin at his forehead while he's sitting on the couch staring at an episode of _Game of Thrones_ he's already watched five times. "Take your pills."

"I don't want them."

"I don't care."

He looks up at her, then at the TV, then at the pill bottle. "I think I fucked up."

"Is it something you can un-fuck?"

"I'm not sure."

She flicks her hair out of her eyes and touches her fingertip to the end of his nose. He halfheartedly bites at her, but it's not worth it. Nothing happening right here, right now, is worth it.

"Gabe?" she asks, and he nods even though she totally already knows the answer.

"Give him time."

He turns his head away. "Have you been talking to Erin?"

"No, but if she says so, too, then it's the right answer."

"You two ganging up on us." He takes an unsteady breath. "I really hate having him mad at me."

"I don't think he's mad at you, babe." She sits down on the couch beside him, folding her legs up under herself like some impossibly graceful human gazelle. He's the water buffalo running through her herd. "He just needs a little time."

"I hurt his feelings, right? I made him feel rejected."

She shrugs. "I guess? I don't know, I haven't talked to him."

"But what about _my_ feelings?"

"Um." She frowns. "What about them?"

"Don't they matter?"

"Obviously they matter. They, like, won this round."

He slumps down and puts his head on her shoulder. "Then why do I feel so shitty?"

She's quiet for a moment, then kisses his hair. "I think these are therapy questions, not me-questions."

Well, fuck.

**

His therapist says he needs to talk to Gabe, using words. Clear declarative sentences. And he also has to _listen_ , and respect Gabe's feelings. Sure, no problem. Because talking like that is something they ever do.

He means to do it. He really does. He texts Gabe a few times, and they have conversations about, like, jackets and Daft Punk and how Cobra's tracking is going. Just because they don't make the jump to an actual talk about the thing they're supposed to talk about doesn't mean that he's chickening out.

Just because Gabe only says "I love you" twice in a whole week of those conversations doesn't mean anything, either. It definitely doesn't mean that Pete feels like he's slowly choking to death on his own heart. 

Then _Alt Press_ does their fucking sneak-preview of upcoming albums series of interviews. Pete didn't know that, because his band does not _have_ an upcoming album and he does not _care_. All of his friends are adults who can handle doing an interview on their own without making it weird.

According to the phone call he gets from Bob McLynn a half-hour after AP's morning site updates, that is not actually the case.

"What's wrong with Saporta now?"

"Um." Half an hour after morning site updates is still really fucking early on the west coast. Pete rubs his eyes and tries to guess what Bob might be talking about. "Well, you know. The whole Vine thing."

"Is that what he's referring to in the interview? That's not what I got out of it."

"I haven't seen it yet. I'll call you back."

He hangs up and pulls the article up on his phone, squinting at the tiny text. The usual lead-in crap, Gabe talking about the sound on this one and who's inspiring him currently; fine. Joking reference to having to top _Save Rock And Roll_ ; fuck you, AP, but fine.  
Then he hits the point where absolutely everything gets weird.

_**So you never toured on [2011 album] _Night Shades_. Can you tell us a little about why?** _

_I had a lot of personal shit going on. Doing the short South America tour and then scattered North America dates was better for me, personally, than a solidly booked tour. I know it disappointed a lot of fans. I hate disappointing people. But you can't always be what people want you to be, you know? Sometimes you're just. Like. You're just not. You're the wrong thing._

_**What do you mean by that? Can you clarify?** _

_Which part?_

_**Any of it? Ha ha. What sort of personal things? What do you mean by being the wrong thing?** _

_Private shit is private, dude. You know that. Come on. That's, like, that's 101. Private lives are private, right?_

_**All right. And the other?** _

_Sometimes you just aren't who people want you to be. You can't be what they need. They need apples and you're oranges. They like oranges fine, they even love oranges, but they need apples. They need a life full of apples. And whatever you do, you're not going to be an apple. You're just wrong._

_**Looking forward to fruit themes on the new Cobra Starship album this fall!** _

Pete puts his phone down and covers his face with his hands for a moment.

"Apples," he mutters. "Fucking... apples."

He sends Gabe a text that he knows won't get an answer-- _You are the mango of my heart_ \--and pulls his boxers on to go find Meagan.

"I need to go to New York," he says, when he finds her in the kitchen making smoothies. "I'm really sorry. Can you wrangle Bronx for, like, a day on your own?"

"I wrangle him for longer than that on a regular basis." She takes a sip of smoothie and makes a face. "What's in New York?"

"Gabe."

Her eyebrows go up. "Good or bad news?"

"I'm an asshole."

"Babe."

"It's a long story. I'll explain on the way to the airport?"

"Not driving you to the airport." She puts her smoothie down and ruffles his hair. "But you can explain while we pack your bag."

**

Pete calls Gabe when his plane lands in New York, while they're still sitting on the runway waiting for a gate. "Call me back," he tells Gabe's voicemail. "I'm here in the city. I need to see you. Please, call me back."

Gabe hasn't called back by the time Pete gets in a cab, which is fucking inconvenient. He gives the driver Gabe's apartment address and calls Erin.

"Pete," she says, sounding more distracted than usual, "if this is about the interview, I don't have time right now, but I promise I--"

"I'm here. In New York."

"Oh." She sighs and the murmur of background noise behind her changes, like she's stepped away from what she was doing. "Of course you are."

"I need to talk to him in person. Where is he? Is he at home?"

"Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"Yes. Where is he?"

"You know he doesn't deal well when he feels cornered, Pete."

"I'm not cornering him. I swear. I just... I just need to talk to him. Face to face. I need to make him look me in the eye and _understand_ , Erin."

"It might not be that simple." 

Every word she says is sending a sharp chill through Pete's chest. "Please tell me where he is."

She sighs, soft with resignation. "He's at the studio with Ryland, as far as I know. That's what he told me."

"Thank you. I... Erin, you know that I didn't mean to hurt him. That was never what I wanted."

"Yes, I know that." 

It isn't quite the absolution he was looking for. "Erin."

"I have to go, Pete. Talk to him. And get him to listen. That's always the difficult part."

She hangs up before Pete can say goodbye, and he curls his fingers tightly around his phone, wishing Apple believed in things with edges so they could bite into his skin while he leans forward and asks the driver to change destinations. 

He gets inside the building with the studio by following a woman with a dog, which is both lucky and something he needs to yell at them about. Security, motherfuckers. It's important. He needs Gabe to stay intact, and beautiful, not robbed or stalked or harassed or serial-killed. Not that the odds of serial-killing are high. Just.

He's fucking panicking, that's all.

He bangs on the studio door until Ryland opens it and looks at him with less surprise than he was expecting. "Pete."

"Ry." He stands on his tiptoes to see over Ryland's shoulder into the room. "Gabe?"

"I take it you two have some things to talk about?" Ryland looks back at Gabe as well. "Yes?"

Gabe shrugs and takes a drink from his water bottle, not looking at Pete. "Whatever, man."

"Yeah." Ryland drags his hand through his hair and sighs. "Well. I'll just... take my phone and prudently leave the premises."

"Nobody's mad at you," Pete says quietly, his eyes still on Gabe.

"Not, strictly speaking, true. I am mad at me." Ryland puts his hand on top of Pete's head for a moment, then leaves, pulling the door closed behind him. Pete hears it click, then moves toward Gabe.

"What are you doing here, Wentzy?" Gabe sounds tired, scraped-down-to-the-bone tired. Pete knows that feeling.

"I need to talk to you."

"About mangoes?" Gabe's eyebrows go up at Pete's look. "Yeah, I got your text. Cute. Cute isn't cutting it today, for some reason."

"Why didn't you tell me you were mad at me?"

"Because I'm _not_ mad at you." Gabe screws the cap back on his water, then knocks the bottle off the table, sending it bouncing and rolling off under a keyboard. "I'm mad at the world. The universe. The fucking... way things work. I'm mad that I didn't be a fucking doctor like my dad wanted, or move to Uruguay like my grandma wanted, or... fuck, marry Bianca and have kids by now and yeah, be fucking miserable sometimes, but I'm fucking miserable _right now_ because this shit _hurts_."

Pete stares at him helplessly. "I'm sorry."

"Stop saying you're sorry! Fuck. I don't want to hear that you're sorry. I either want things to... to fucking _be different_ , or I want to be able to deal with them the way they are. You being sorry doesn't do me any fucking good."

Pete closes his eyes and forces himself to take a breath, then another. "I love you."

"I know you love me."

"This is where you say you love me, too." Pete swallows into the silence that follows, and the darkness behind his still-closed lids. "That is, if you still do."

"Don't even joke about that." Gabe's voice is closer, and when Pete opens his eyes he realizes Gabe is right there, right in front of him, staring at him with pain and confusion and his heart in his eyes, the way it always is if you take the trouble to look.

"I love you," Gabe says. "But this fucking hurts right now. Okay?"

"Okay." Pete nods stiffly, fumbling his hands against his jacket, trying to find somewhere to put them. A jacket with no pockets, what was he thinking? "Okay."

"I love you," Gabe says again. 

"I love you, too. I love--"

Gabe catches Pete's face in his hands and kisses him, desperate and demanding in a way Pete recognizes. It's the way you kiss when you're scared and convinced you're about to be alone, so you grab hold of everything you can and hold on so tight, so tight your fingers ache. 

Everything aches.

"This thing we have-- it's everything for me." Gabe presses his forehead against Pete's, still cupping Pete's face in his hands. "Do you get that? This is my world. My family. It isn't the way I thought my life would be, not... not even fucking close. But it's what I have, what we _made_ , all of us, together. You and me and Erin and Meagan."

"And Bronx," Pete whispers.

"And Bronx." Gabe pulls one hand away to wipe tears from his eyes, and Pete thinks his heart is going to burst, just split open and run juice down inside his chest cavity. "This is my family. This is my life. Don't take this away from me. I can't take it."

"I'm not _trying_ to take it away, Gabe. Why do you think that? I'm trying to keep it _safe_."

"I know. I know. I just..." Gabe steps back, throwing his hands out helplessly. "I can't stop being afraid this is step one of walking away. Taking it apart and going. I'm scared as hell, Pete, and I don't know what to do. Nobody ever told me how to hold on to something like this. How to keep it together. I don't even know how to fix a two-person relationship, we're all... three-D and problems squared and I've gotta do emotional Krav Maga to understand anything and I'm freaked the fuck out."

Pete puts his hand up. "Stop. Stop. Please, stop."

Gabe falls silent, chest heaving and face red. Pete stares at him, taking a slow breath, trying to will the tingling in his hands to stop. He doesn't have time to panic right now. He doesn't have time to do anything but kick this whole situation right down the middle and into the net. Shitty metaphor. This isn't a kick; it's carrying a baby bunny carved from glass, in cupped hands.

"Emotional Krav Maga?" he says finally.

Gabe chokes out a laugh. "Something like that."

"You never told me you know Krav Maga."

"I don't. It just... it sounded good."

"It did." Pete licks his lips. "I love you."

"I know." Gabe nods, his eyes suspiciously bright. "I love you too."

"I'm not leaving you. I'm not going anywhere. Not ending this."

Gabe exhales through his teeth. "You promise?"

"I promise."

"You came here to tell me that?"

"I did. Yeah." Pete nods and takes a careful step toward him, holding out his hand. "Now I think you should take me home."

**

Gabe pins him down to the bed with both hands and all his weight. Pete's first instinct is to relax and let go, let himself be caught up and trust Gabe to take him wherever he wanted to go. But that isn't what Gabe needs today; he needs to have to fight to hold Pete so he can reassure himself that he _can_.

So Pete arches and squirms under him, fighting just enough to make Gabe work for it but not enough to risk actually breaking free. He matches Gabe kiss for kiss, closing his eyes and feeling his mouth get hot and clumsy as Gabe catches his lips with his teeth or scrapes stubble across them again and again. 

Gabe grinds down against him, his dick pressed hard against the join of Pete's thigh and his groin. "Easy," Pete gasps, his hands scrambling against Gabe's back. "Easy. Let me get my pants off."

Gabe pulls back slowly, like he has to fight to do it, and Pete reaches for him as soon as he kicks off his jeans. "C'mon. Come back here."

Gabe shakes his head, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth but not quite taking shape. "I'm upset, I'm not a dog." He strips off his own jeans, then his t-shirt, and Pete's throat goes dry like it does every time he sees Gabe's body

"Now," Gabe says, leaning in over him again and deliberately pinning each of his wrist down in turn. "Where was I?"

Pete closes his eyes and lets Gabe take his mouth again. He doesn't want to fight anymore; he just wants to be with Gabe, like things are normal. They almost are; Gabe's body feels the same against his, the steady roll of his hips and solid heat of his cock, the way he huffs uneven breaths against Pete's skin and their bodies stick to each other with sweat. Almost the same.

But they can't quite get in synch, Gabe's rhythm a heartbeat off from Pete's. And when Pete opens his eyes and looks up at him, Gabe's jaw is tight, his throat working like there are words he's not letting himself say.

Pete comes first, sticky-hot between them, and Gabe kisses him like he's the only thing that exists. 

Everything is going to be all right, Pete thinks, tilting his head back to let Gabe kiss his throat while he grinds down harder, chasing his own orgasm into Pete's body. It just takes a little time for the weird to clear out, and then everything will go back to normal.

**

Erin gets home while Gabe is in the shower. Pete's in the kitchen, drinking some kind of special vitamin water infused with flowers or something, and wondering--not for the first time--how much the versions of himself and Gabe who met in 2003 would hate the selves they are now.

Sellout posers, but the tech is good and they have all the sex they want. Maybe the angry kids would let it slide after all.

"Naked man in my kitchen," Erin says wearily, dropping her keys on the counter. "How did it go?"

"Good. You know." Pete looks down at himself and shrugs. "Naked good."

"I'm glad." he can't tell if she means it or not. Mostly she sounds tired.

He twists the cap onto the water. "You want me to get some clothes?"

"It's fine. I've seen it." She smiles at him and his heart stops racing quit so badly. "He's asleep?"

"In the shower."

"Oh, good. I'll get a kiss goodnight." She rubs the back of her neck and step to the refrigerator. "You're feeling better?"

"Much better. I think he is, too."

"Like a miracle, how talking helps."

"Zing."

"I'm not picking on you."

He wishes he had clothes on, now. "But you're pissed at me." 

"I'm not pissed. I'm tired."

"Tired of what?" Fuck his body and its crossed signals that make everything kick off panic racing in his chest. "Tired of... of all of it? Us?"

She closes the refrigerator without taking anything out and rests her forehead against the door. "Literally, physically tired, Pete. I've been on my feet all day."

"Oh." He looks down. "Shit, on your feet in Louboutins, too."

"Comes with the job."

"Take those off. Come sit on the couch. I'll rub your feet."

She turns her head and raises an eyebrow at him. "I hope you're not offering on the assumption that I'll be polite or reserved or something and say no."

"I'm offering in total earnest. Come on."

She follows him to the couch and steps out of her heels, groaning under her breath. He takes a blanket from the armchair and wraps it around his waist, sarong-style; she's seen it, touched it, whatever, but that doesn't mean putting her feet all over his dick won't be a little weird.

"Talking," she says once they're both settled and he's holding her feet in lotion-slicked hands, digging his thumbs into her arches. "Like I said, what a miracle."

"He talked, mostly. I listened."

"What did you think of what he had to say?"

Pete bites down on his lip and focuses on rubbing the tension up toward her toes, where it can escape. "I didn't mean to make him feel rejected."

"Neither do I, when I do it." She sighs. "He's more sensitive than he lets on."

"Tell me about it." He sets his thumb against a pressure point that makes her toes curl. "Better?"

"Not even close."

They're quiet for a few minutes, listening to the water running in the other room. "Gabe and his showers," Pete says finally. "He might be in there all night." She doesn't answer right away, and when he looks at her, her eyes are closed and her head tucked into the corner of the couch. "You fell asleep on me," he says softly, taking his hands away from her feet.

She shakes her head, eyes still closed. "I wish," she says, her voice rough and throaty, "that you two would stop this emotional fighting for dominance thing that you do."

"What?"

"Emotional jousting. Whatever you want to call it." She opens her eyes and looks at him, pinning him in place. "The fighting."

"We don't..." He swallows, wishing again for clothes just for somewhere to put his hands. "He called it emotional Krav Maga."

"I don't care what it's called. I wish you would stop it and learn to find some middle ground."

"We really don't fight very much. Or ever. Even this, this isn't _fighting_ , it's just--"

"This is the part where finding common ground matters _more_."

He tugs at the edge of the blanket, trying to get it higher around his waist like that's going to make any difference. "I don't think there _is_ a common ground on this one. There's what he wants and what I want and they're pretty mutually exclusive, unless I'm missing something."

Her eyes drop closed again. "That's a pretty big unless, don't you think?"

He gently pushes her feet off his lap and stands up. "I'll go get him out of the shower for you."

"Pete, I'm not trying to be mean."

"I know. But I don't know what you want me to say."

She's quiet again, then pushes her hair back off her forehead and forces a smile. "I guess this isn't a good conversation to have when I'm so tired. I'm sorry."

"It's fine." He smiles in return, just as forced. "I'll go get him."

"How long are you staying?"

"Just 'til tomorrow night." He shrugs, trying not to look for any hints of relief in her eyes. "Bronx."

"Of course. Remind me to send some things back with you for him, we've been collecting again."

"You don't have to do that."

"Our favorite nephew. We really do." She stands up and walks toward the bedroom, and he realizes she's going to get Gabe herself. That's not allowed to sting. "Are you with us or in the guest room tonight?"

"Up to you." He tries to make it sound lighthearted, but she looks back at him with knowing and compassion all over her face.

"Come on," she says softly. "You know he sleeps better in the middle."

**

Meagan, Bronx, and Bear pick him up at the airport together, and the car ride home is full of stories and shrieking and godawful dog farts. It's a welcome distraction, and blessedly grounding; he can't tear himself apart worrying if he's messed up his romantic life when he's got his kid trying to crawl out from under his seat belt to get to him and tell him about what happened to all the dinosaurs who live in a pack in the backyard, under the koi pond. Whatever happens, love or end of love, he is Bronx's dad, and that's unwavering.

It helps.

When they get back to the house, it's bathtime and storytime and then he manages to fall into bed without ever actually having a conversation with Meagan about how any of it went. 

That lasts until he gets back from taking Bronx to preschool the next morning, and finds her sitting at the kitchen table with two cups of coffee, a sleeve of rice cakes, and his iPad, which she turns to face him as he comes into the room.

The screen is taken up with an Internet meme generator--Advice Dog, some part of his brain informs him. The text declares SIT. SPEAK.

"Do I have to?" he asks, reaching for the coffee.

"Yes. Don't hide from me."

"I'm not hiding." He sits down and takes a careful sip. Hazelnut creamer. She's a genius. "I was tired last night."

"Okay. So we can talk now."

He takes a rice cake and starts breaking it into tiny pieces. "We talked. We had sex. I thought we sorted it out."

"I hear a but coming."

He nods. "Then I talked to Erin and she basically said, like, nothing is sorted out." She sips her coffee and waves her hand in a circle, the gesture that means _continue_. "I don't know. She says we need to figure out a way to find common ground, but I don't see how we _can_ with this. Either we come out and put it all out there and let people judge and say horrible things, or we keep it ours, and don't tell, and everything stays safe."

She frowns a little and wrinkles her nose over the edge of her cup. "I don't get what you mean by staying safe, I guess."

He shifts in his chair, wishing this conversation could've happened later than 10 AM. "I told you about Mikey. About that whole... that summer. That thing."

"Yeah." She shrugs. "I don't see how it connects to this."

"I always thought that if I could've come out for anybody, it would've been for him." He looks up at the ceiling, willing his stomach to stay calm. "And I couldn't, you know? Neither of us could. We agreed to just let it go. And then I fucked up, I went and put it in songs, kind of put him on blast, and he was so mad. He was _so_ mad at me, for doing that. It was the wrong thing to do. And I just... I don't know, I'm supposed to _learn_ from the things I do wrong, aren't I?"

She's stil frowning. "I definitely agree that you should not write a song about Gabe."

"Oh. Thanks." He rolls his eyes and take another rice cake to smash. "I knew that much."

She ignores him. "But I don't get... I mean, Pete, Gabe isn't Mikey. For one thing, he _wants_ this. And you're not the same person you were then. You're older, you're different, everything's different. The same thing isn't going to happen."

"You don't know that."

"Neither do you."

He brushes the remains of the rice cake off the table and watches Bear enthusiastically try to lick them up. That fucking dog. "What about the band? I'm not supposed to be an attention-seeking drama queen who makes it all about me anymore."

"You're not being fair," she says quietly.

"Yeah, well, none of this is fair."

She taps her fingers on the table. "Don't be mean."

"I'm not..." He takes a breath. "Sorry. And I guess the stuff with the band falls under not being the same person I used to be, right? Everything's different."

"I think so." She sips her coffee. "There's another thing." He raises his eyebrows, waiting for it, and she shrugs. "Bronx."

"What about him?"

"Think about it." When he stare at her in confusion, she rolls her eyes. "The conversation you had at the ice cream place last week."

"Oh." Pete takes a third rice cake. "I'm going to eat this one," he says quickly, to both her and Bear, who looks disappointed with the results of his crumb-foraging. "Promise."

"Bronx," she says meaningfully.

He sighs and drops the rice cake. "Okay, well, he asked me what gay means, and I told him."

"And then he asked you if we know any gay people."

"Right. So I told him yes, and named a couple. I don't want my kid growing up with a skewed view of the world."

"What about when he asks you what bisexual means, and if he knows any bisexual people?"

Pete winces. "Shit."

"Are you going to be like, well, I am, Bx, but it's a secret?"

"Megs."

"And then when he's like, Daddy, you always told me secrets are bad and we shouldn't keep them. Then what?"

"This conversation is way outside of what I'm capable of dealing with right now."

She sighs. "Fine. Table it. But I'm telling you, when that discussion happens? I'm not covering for you. I'm going to say, 'Go ask your daddy, Bronx,' and it's all yours."

"You're a cold-hearted woman, you know that?"

She shrugs and picks up her coffee, then gets to her feet. "I say what I think. I'm going to do my yoga, are you coming?"

"No." He tilts his chair all the way back until his head thumps against the wall. "I have to think, too."

**

Thinking takes up all of the rest of the day that doesn't belong to Bronx. He turns the whole thing over in his mind, again and again, trying to find some angle on it that will make everything click into place and make sense. It doesn't happen, of course. It can't. This isn't that simple, no matter how much he wants it to be.

He writes down the key words on a sheet of paper and sets it in the middle of the table, so he can stare down at it like God. _Common ground. Out there. Secret. Safety. Love. Brave. Bronx._

He crypto-Tweets, because even though he's cut back, he hasn't kicked the habit. _you will never be just a line in a song_

He grabs his phone off the bedside table and types out a quick e-mail to his lawyer. Hopefully he won't need it, but it can't hurt to put things on alert. Maybe.

He goes to bed still thinking and tosses and turns half the night, finally dozing off a little after three. He wakes up with his face shoved against Meagan's shoulder, like he gravitated to her in his sleep. She's his earth, and Gabe's his air.

It isn't simple, but that doesn't mean it isn't true.

He kisses up her shoulder to her neck. "Meagan," he whispers. "Meggy."

She wakes up with an unhappy groan that turns into a questioning look when she sees his face. "You okay, baby?" she mumbles, rubbing at her eyes. "What--"

He kisses her instead of answering, wrapping his arms around her waist and rolling onto his back so she's pulled along on top. She laughs against his mouth, still sleepy and confused, and relaxes in his arms, settling against him. 

"Did you wake me up for sex, Mr. Wentz?" she asks, raising an eyebrow at him. "Because I'm not sure that's behavior that should be encouraged."

"I want to get you off like five times." He rubs his hands up and down her back, then lets one drift down to her panties and under the elastic. "Maybe six."

"That's a nice goal. I could be into that."

"I hope so." He kisses her throat. "Because later I'm probably going to ask you to get on a plane to New York with me."

She bites at his cheek, his nose, his chin. "Why only probably?"

"I have to call Gabe and Erin first."

She goes still against him for a moment, still enough that he can feel the beat of her heart. "And what are we gonna do if they say yes?"

"We're gonna put some pictures on Instagram, I think." He looks up at her, meeting her eyes, wondering at the way she still always looks at him like she trusts him to do a good thing.

"Instagram is the new press release," she says, and kisses him.

He squeezes her hip with the hand that isn't rubbing slow circles against her, making her wet. "We have to get to six, first."

She laughs and he feels like maybe he _is_ doing a good thing--not simple, but good. He and Gabe have never been simple. They do everything their own way, making it up as they go along; he's never been able to think about Gabe the way he's thought about anything else.

So simple isn't always good. More life lessons that everyone else figured out way before he did. He can't imagine where he'd be without Meagan and her willingness to let him catch up. Her steadiness. Her heart. What they have isn't simple, either, even though it looks like it on the surface; it sinks down in a hundred different layers.

"I love you," he says, looking up into her eyes. "I hope I tell you that enough."

"I like hearing it." She smiles and it's like the whole world lights up. "If we're getting to six, you'd better get to work."

**  
It's not an interview, not words that have to be phrased so carefully and can't be taken back. 

"The theory is that a picture is worth a thousand words," Gabe says. "Three pictures, that's like a whole AP interview, right?"

"I mourn the demise of long-form journalism." Erin grins at them and shakes her head. "One of the two of you, one of me and Pete, one of Gabe and Meagan?"

Pete shakes his head. "I was thinking one of me and Gabe holding hands. One of all of our hands, all four of us. And one of, like, the four of us and Bronx? So people who figure it out will know we're a family. It's on all levels. It's not just orgies and hookers and blow."

"I haven't gotten a single hooker out of this relationship," Meagan says. "I want a refund."

"How do you think I feel?" Gabe shakes his head. "Those two actually made me _stop_ doing blow."

"Not funny." Erin picks up Gabe's phone. "Come over here by the window, so there's good light."

"I want to take the little dogs to the park," Bronx says, grabbing at Pete's legs. "Let's go to the park."

"Ten minutes, buddy." Pete walks over to the window, dragging Bronx along with him as he refuses to let go. "So. You want a classic prom pose, or..."

Gabe takes Pete's hand and threads their fingers together. "That'll come across as a joke. I don't want people to be laughing." 

"Not everybody's going to get it," Pete says softly. "You know that."

"Yeah. I do. But it's... it's a statement. Together. It's ours."

Pete nods and squeezes his hand. "Totally ours."

Gabe brings their hands up to his face and kisses Pete's knuckles. Pete hears the shutter sound from Gabe's phone just as he starts to smile.

"One down," Erin says, squinting at the screen. "Two to go. Oh, this is adorable. Meagan, look."

"How are we going to take ones of all four of us together?" Gabe asks, pulling Pete against him. "We didn't think this through."

"I'll take the picture!" Bronx shifts his grip from Pete's leg to Gabe's. "Give me the phone."

"You have to wait until we're all set up." Gabe holds his arm out to Meagan. "C'mon, ladies. Make us look good."

"All of our hands together," Meagan says doubtfully. "Like we're about to play a volleyball game?"

"Yeah, but with more affection." Pete reaches for her hand, then Erin's. "Right?"

"Holding hands with extra affection." Gabe nods. "Got it. Except no, I don't."

"Grab Meagan's pinky," Erin instructs him, "and get your thumb under Pete's..."

"This is ridiculous." Meagan starts to laugh and then they all are, leaning on each other and smiling. Pete feels like his whole heart is lighting up.

"Bronx," he says. "Take the picture."

It's off-center and they all look ten feet tall, but it's perfect. 

"Family portrait," Gabe says as he types. "Posted. Okay. Let's all retweet like crazy and then go to the park."

"Third one," Pete reminds him. "Bronx."

"Oh, fuck. Bronx--"

"Park!" Bronx yells. "We're taking the little dogs to the park!"

Meagan gets the picture on the fly, just as Bronx throws himself at Tulipan and Koala. "The kids. Got it."

Pete pulls Bronx off the dogs and scoops him up, hugging him as tight as he can. "Don't squish your little brothers, Bronx."

"Daddy, they're _dogs_."

Erin looks at her phone and smiles. "There it goes. Beginning and ending with the Internet."

"Twitter giveth and Twitter taketh away," Gabe says. "Or something. Let's go to the park before McLynn calls, okay?"

They walk down the street in a pack, the dogs and Bronx leading the way, and all Pete can think is that he's never felt like his heart was in better hands.


End file.
